Daily Jabs to Control Insulin Ends - Wednesday 21 January 2015, A Great Day!

With today's technology why can't an artificial pancreas be put into a patient's body? Well, now it can! Xavier Hames is only four years old. Autoimmune disease has destroyed his pancreas. An artificial one is working very well indeed inside his body.

The artificial pancreas is more a computer than a body organ. It monitors low insulin levels, even predicting its future trends, then controls insulin delivery. It is particularly useful as night when external insulin treatment can fail resulting in a coma.

Preparations are in train to implant another artificial pancreas in an adult, Jane Reid. This could mean an end to eight jabs a day to test blood levels of insulin and continuous injections to control it. This could save governments millions of dollars in the long term.